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Fortinet FortiOS vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortinet FortiOS
Ranking in Firewalls
28th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.3%, up from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiOS is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 14.5%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
RaynoPowell - PeerSpot reviewer
Great IPS and DNS filtering with useful tutorials available  
We don't really find a lot of issues on it. If I really have to complain about something, and there's not much, is the free VPN solution is a bit limited. Then again, it is a free solution. That's essentially it. Nothing else on the FortiGate or on the Fortinet OS side is really an issue. That's one of the main reasons why we use them: everything works and works well. For what we use, there isn't really any missing feature. In fact, we actually want to get rid of some of the features that they have due to the fact that, for the security model that we need to implement, having more features actually opens up potential risk. We actually would like to have a device that is more focused specifically on OT environments the operational technologies. We would prefer a device that's stripped down, that doesn't have all the other fluff in the more enterprise system. We actually want a feature where we can remove features that are there that we don't use. That is actually a thing that we find. We use it now in an operational technology environment. We use normal IT equipment. However, it's not a normal IT network. It differs significantly from a normal corporate IT environment. In a normal corporate IT environment, you like the fluff, and the additional features, and you can click, click, click, and you're done. However, all of those features you add to a device open up risk for us. And that is something we do differently in the OT environment in operational technology. We prefer to not have the fluff. We prefer to have only what is needed for the device to do what it needs to do. For example, imagine an additional feature for some sort of additional VPN technology has been added. However, it's not really needed for the OT environment, and it's not configured on the device, yet there's some sort of security threat in there. Now, all of a sudden, somebody can hack your system, and he's in there, and he's switching the lights on and off the entire city. And you don't know about it due to the fact that the additional fluff that we added to the system, we weren't aware of that issue was on there. You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled. Is it really disabled? Is it actually unloaded? Is it uninstalling Word from your laptop, or is it just not running Word?
Eddy Ramirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use
The security has improved as we can isolate the network. We can do attrition prevention via a tool that comes with the solution. We can have a VPN solution in place for those that work from home, outside the network, in a secure manner. We also like that it offers good authentication. It offers radius-based authentication, which has been useful for the company. The main platform is under the Open VPN firewall. The solution has high availability. When we have different ISPs, we can actually load balance those links or actually put some priority or even classify the traffic that might go into one ISP or another.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is extremely reliable."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"The stability of Fortinet meets our requirements and I'm satisfied with it."
"We have expanded the wireless access point and switches using Fortinet FortiOS."
"The fact that is it has a UTM, a Unified Threat Management feature is the most valuable aspect for us. It's an all in one product. It's like our one-stop-shop to the internet."
"I find filtering traffic, filtering web traffic, session traffic, and managing the network as valuable features."
"Fortinet has optimized the WAN environment for connecting users to the application."
"I have found the most valuable features to be the policies, cache, and the SD-WAN."
"It has a lot of scalability abilities which makes it easy to scale."
"The most important feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the IPS."
"The tool's integration is more like a button press."
"It's open source."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"I feel that its valuable features are that it is simple and free."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
 

Cons

"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"It needs more available central management."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"Real-time threat monitoring is not there."
"FortiOS could provide a more detailed analysis of the network and connected devices."
"Fortinet FortiOS could improve by having better authentication methods with Microsoft or Google Services."
"Fortinet's central management needs to be improved. FortiManager's technical tool provider ability should manage all Fortinet security products. Right now, FortiManager only manages the configuration of FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiOS can improve by limiting the need for the CLI and GUI combination. The more functions they can have on the GUI and less on CLI would be helpful."
"It could more scalable for the lower end users."
"FortiOS's interface and monitoring could be improved."
"It would be better if AWS instances were available. If I want to upgrade from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available rather than having a big instance and paying a lot of money for that. The issue is that we had deployed in AWS Cloud, and we were using a very small instance. Recently we wanted to move in-house and deploy it on the big instance because it was struggling with the RAM. If we use T2.small, we cannot upgrade it to the T2.medium. It has predefined instances in the marketplace with a lot of cost differences. If I can increase the RAM, I have to choose the T3.large instance. If I'm paying $270 for the small instance, I have to pay more than double the cost for T3.large. It is about $850, and this is not good. So, it would be better if it was cheaper. I think both AWS and Fortinet should think about that. They should provide it on lower instances as well. If I want to upgrade it from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available, but it's a problem."
"In terms of improvement, the performance could be enhanced."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) is integrated into some restricted service providers for OPNSense."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is flexible."
"The Indian market is different than the European and American markets. When you compare they need to be a bit more aggressive on pricing."
"The pricing is perfect."
"The pricing is very reasonable."
"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."
"FortiGate's pricing falls within the mid-range when compared to other leading firewall solutions."
"Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"Pricing for the tool can vary. Sometimes, aggressive pricing is offered at the start, but later, as subscriptions and expansions are needed, the costs can increase, and customers may have to pay whatever is required."
"It would be better if it were cheaper. We have the firewall in our office, and the license is expiring in 20 to 25 days. We got a quote for almost 80,000 Pakistani Rupees, which is a little costly."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is less than $10,000 annually. The price of the support is reasonable compared to competitors."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is reasonable and it is paid annually. You are able to select the features that you want."
"The solution is cost effective. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The Fortinet solutions can be a bit expensive."
"The price of Fortinet FortiOS is comparable to other similar solutions on the market. We are on an annual license to use the solution."
"The pricing is competitive for the medium and high markets but for the small markets it can be expensive."
"It costs about $1000."
"As an appliance, it's in the medium price range."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"There are no licensing costs for OPNsence."
"The price of OPNsense is good."
"I would rate the pricing three out of ten."
"The solution is not expensive."
"It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?
The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
Regarding the cost, the initial purchase is relatively cheap because it comes bundled. However, the subscription rene...
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products. However, as a free firewall p...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiOS vs. OPNsense and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,791 professionals have used our research since 2012.